Thursday, July 3, 2008

Camp Redemption

Bloodied but unbowed, I refuse to let those toddlers get me down. Today found some redemption. With Thursday camp being at George and Mie’s house on the beach, I wanted to take advantage of what the kids wanted to do anyway. After the morning singing circle, I passed out an empty jelly jar to each.

The tide was low, leaving countless shallow tidal pools. The kids waded into the tidal pools (each with a nanny) and looked at small darting fish, scurrying hermit crabs, shells, and floating forests of seaweed. Nannies and children chased small fish, wading from rock pool to pool. The exercise, planned for 30 minutes, went for over an hour as kids ran and splashed and filled their jars.

They came up from the beach for snack time, wet, diapers full of seawater, giddy with playing in the ocean, carrying jars with small fish. The arts and crafts activity was construction paper with crayons and stickers in the shape of, yes, a fish! The day was thematically coherent (always essential to a two-year-old), and seemed, for the first time, to fly by.